Bridging Gen-X teen comedies and millennial teen comedies was the period from roughly 1996-2006 featuring Shakespeare-based teen comedies. Although these films starred millennials (often Julia Stiles, but not always), they are timeless due to the source material.
“Get Over It” (2001) particularly finds a not-too-stressful time-defying vibe, hitting particularly high notes with its music choices in all kinds of genres, in diegetic and non-diegetic form. When ranking Bard-based high school movies, this one will probably be in the middle of the pack of everyone’s lists – rarely amazing, consistently sweet, lightly funny.
A timeless good time
The film, based on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” while also featuring a musical version of that play as its plot driver, nominally focuses on Ben Foster’s Berke. He’s a likeable milquetoast whose bland girlfriend Allison (Melissa Sagemiller) breaks up with him.
“Get Over It” (2001)
Director: Tommy O’Haver
Writer: R. Lee Fleming Jr., loosely based on William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster, Melissa Sagemiller
This makes Berke so blinded by heartbreak that he doesn’t notice the adorable Kelly (Kirsten Dunst, accidentally the film’s actual star) is totally into him. This might sound like an unlikely plot, but there are touches of verisimilitude. Guys certainly can get so caught up on their first love that they are effectively blind to other opportunities. Plus, Berke has always thought of Kelly as his best friend Felix’s (Colin Hanks) kid sister, and therefore off limits as a love match.
Felix is overprotective of Kelly, but that’s just one more element of mild sweetness about “Get Over It.” Lest we forget, though, that this came out in the wake of 1999’s “American Pie,” so we must have some gross-out humor. Here we have vomit, among the grossest and least funny of bodily fluids – but the incident does help sort out a plot point.
The cast of “Hey, that guy!” and “Hey, that girl!” performers also includes Shane West doing a British accent (even though his character isn’t British), Sisqo, Mila Kunis and Zoe Saldana. And we can imagine theater director Dr. Desmond Forrest Oates (Martin Short) is a nom de plume of “Only Murders’ ” Oliver Putnam, although Short’s teeth looked different in 2001.
Not quite a musical
They initially play out a plot made more famous five years later via “High School Musical,” as Berke balances basketball with theater as he attempts to win back Allison. That angle fades away, and then it’s the classic love rectangle.
Writer R. Lee Fleming Jr. (“She’s All That”) and director Tommy O’Haver are aware that the love-match questions and answers are predictable, so they wisely don’t try to wring false drama from them. Instead, our attention is often stolen by music in its various forms.
The use of the opening twinkle from Badly Drawn Boy’s “The Shining” gives the slightest hint that “Get Over It” could’ve been something more profound and personal, something like 2004’s “Garden State.” It’s never that, but when Kelly (and Dunst) sings a beautiful number using lines from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the film does briefly achieve dreamlike magic.
The POV shifts here, too, or at least gets shared. The performance makes Berke notice Kelly, and therefore her dream comes true. While I don’t dislike main character Berke (after all, he’s my surrogate in this cast), I particularly am happy that Kelly gets what she wanted. It’s not Dunst’s best role, but it’s perhaps a role’s best use of Dunst: “Get Over It” plops her sad eyes and gold locks into the spotlight to heighten the material.
“Get Over It” turns a 16th century crowd-pleaser into a crowd-pleaser at the start of the new millennium. Though its predominant vibe is inoffensive and forgettable cuteness, it is very briefly sprinkled with Dunst’s cinematic fairy dust.